Bengaluru man sues PVR, INOX for wasting his time with 25-minute ads, wins Rs 65k in court

A 30-year-old man in Bengaluru named Abhishek MR won Rs 65,000 in court after he sued PVR Cinemas, INOX and BookMyShow for “wasting” 25 minutes of his time by running lengthy ads before the screening of the movie, which caused “mental agony”.

In 2023, he had booked three tickets to watch Sam Bahadur at 4.05 pm. However, the show started at 4: 30 pm after long session of ads, which delayed the movie for almost 30 minutes. He argued that this delay ruined his schedule, making him miss important appointments. He also accused the multiplexes of misleading customers by sharing incorrect show times and forcing them to watch advertisements for commercial benefit.

“The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day and has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as compensation,” the complaint read.

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The consumer court ruled in Abhishek’s favour, citing “unfair trade practice” of running ads for a long time and emphasising that “time is money”. “25-30 minutes is not a small amount of time to sit idle in a theatre and watch whatever is telecasted,” said the court.

The court directed PVR, INOX to compensate Abhishek for wasting his time, which includes Rs 50,000 (for unfair trade practices), Rs 5,ooo (for mental agony) and Rs 10,000 (for legal expenses).

Apart from that, PVR and INOX were fined Rs 1 lakh, which they should deposit into the Consumer Welfare Fund within 30 days.

However, the case against BookMyShow was dismissed by court as they said it is just a ticket booking platform and does not have control over playing ads in the cinema halls.